Ginning up the numbers

This must be coming into the vernacular – I have heard the term ‘ginning up’ on several ocassions lately. That’s what I feel when I see stuff like this which was taken directly from a Statistics Canada report.

Now there is no doubt we are in a recession – I don’t question that but look at the y axis on this chart. It starts at $36 billion. That little trick is used to exaggerate the effect of the chart. Consider this one below that I prepared – essentially the same as the one above.

In fact, manufacturing sales less auto are only down 1.2% month- over-month which, again, is not a good thing but I think even Statistics Canada has fallen into the trap of tarting or ginning up the numbers.

On the other hand, everyone is very conservative about forecasts. It has been obvious for more than 5 months that the economy (global, U.S. Canadian, etc.) was going to deteriorate drastically, but everyone is still painting the picture with nice, soft colors… And we are not done yet. Expect forecasters revising down their projections for still a few months to come.

Talk about ginning up the numbers… (well, actually, ginning down the numbers…) 😛 Why “manufacturing sales LESS AUTO”? According to StatCan, “manufacturing sales decreased 5.4% to $41.7 billion in January, falling to the lowest level in almost 10 years.” Last time I checked, auto was still part of the Canadian economy.

Now they just need to make a good reality check about the mid-term (i.e. how long it will take for the recession to end). 2010? Do they actually do their homework??? Oh, well, these are the same people who were giving AAA ratings to Lehman Brothers, AIG, etc. (and the others were talking about economic growth in 2009…)

At least it’s a half-step in the right direction. Recognizing the severity of the problem is fundamental so we can take the appropriate measures.